The Arabian Horse

The Arabian Horse

With a remarkable intelligence and grace in movement, the Arabian horse is the oldest breed known to men. Oh, it is…the most expensive and cherished as well!

The Arabian horse is a true warrior!

There is no other horse that has influenced our modern breeds of horses so much as the Arabian. It was this horse that moved mountains and crossed rivers, he was the prized possession of pharaohs and kings…they say that Mohamed proclaimed that the Arabian was a gift from Allah himself…King Solomon stood in awe of this mighty breed…

No other breed of horse has influenced the world so much as the Arabian… Alexander the Great rode an Arabian….George Washington rode an Arabian…this was the horse that everybody wanted to have.

However, where did the Arabian come from, really? Well, Mohamed believed that the Arabian came from Allah...but people nowadays are not that sure as to the origins of the Arabian horse, it is believed that the ancestors of the Arabian were horses that ran wild around the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers…after domestication by the Bedouins, the Arabian became a prized war horse, perfect for life in the desert. The Bedouins started a selective breeding program; something that they were almost fanatical about…as the fame of the Arabian grew, each tribe had its own strain of Arabians, for extremely high prices you could buy some breeding stock, but when it came to the prized mares there was no use in even asking for a price, because you wouldn’t get one.

It was the mares that were the ones ridden in to battle…they had the lightness of foot and the speed necessary to get in and get out….many people think of the Bedouins as a people that liked to war a lot…and that was true about them to a certain extent.

Nevertheless, they had a politeness and a generosity about them that was unequaled in the more "civilized" parts of the world at that point in time. If you were a complete stranger you could go up and touch the center pole of a Bedouin tent and they were obliged to take you and your horse in and care for both until three days had passed. Kind of cool!

The Arabian horse has a gentle spirit and he is extremely intelligent…a direct result of the fact that the horses were many times kept in the owner’s tent (to prevent theft) this exposed them to everyday family life which resulted on a truly domesticated and gentle animal.

There are several legends as to the origins of the Arabian horse…one legend states that King Solomon received a stallion as a gift from the Quean of Sheba, another is that King Solomon gave a prized stallion to the Bedouins when they came to give tribute…

There is one legend that states that Mohamed had a bunch of breeding mares and to test their loyalty he took them into the desert and turned them loose to go quench their thirst at a nearby watering hole…after turning the horses lose he called them all back with his war horn…only five returned…these mares were the ones that Mohamed used to start the breed that now is one of the most well known horses in the world. I personally think that these are only legends but hey, there might be people out there who believe them!

It was the Arabian who influenced pretty much every breed that there was in Europe at the time…when the Europeans came and saw the lithe grace of the Arabian in comparison to their big heavy native stock the Arabian was an instant hit!

There are even some breeds that came into existence because of the Arabian, one of these being the Thoroughbred. To this day 92 percent of all Thoroughbreds can trace their lines all the way back to three Arabian stallions that were brought to England.

There are several colors that Arabians come in but then again there are some colors that just don’t exist in the Arabian world, two of these being the pinto color and the buckskin color…its just not in the genes I guess.

The Arabian has truly been a horse of the ages, he is the oldest horse breed known to man…it is the horse breed that has most influenced man and most likely, the Arabian will still be the number one horse in the world for a long time after we are gone.